


If you've gotta go, go now.

by montes-carpatus (Carpathyah)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Developing Relationship, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Post-Recall, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 08:30:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7927858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carpathyah/pseuds/montes-carpatus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jesse hasn't heard her voice in ten years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If you've gotta go, go now.

**Author's Note:**

> A midnight drabble piece about a cowboy's love.

It had been years, probably a decade that he hadn’t seen Angela, his Angie. Her blue eyes were unforgettable. The way the sun shined on her blond hair gave her a halo that he couldn’t resist. Her soft skin in the palms of his hands. The way her cheeks flushed after exercise. Her sharp Swiss accent in her English that could’ve cut through him with just a flick of her tongue. He picked up on a few words but never enough to communicate. His Southern American accent never gave the language justice.  


She had a fire similar to the Colorado deserts in August with the delicacy of a newborn lamb. She handled patients, the administration, and her research for Overwatch day in and day out. He would find his way to her office in the middle of the night with a cup of tea or a blanket in his hand. There were no limits to what she could do, and he found it inspiring.  


“My name is Dr. Angela Ziegler, and I am Head of Overwatch’s Medical Research Team,” she introduced herself to him. She stood so tall for someone so small.  


“Nice to meet you, Doc. Name’s McCree, Jesse McCree,” he introduced himself as he shook her hand.  


He was young, maybe too young to understand what love really meant. He spent his late teens as a player. Courting left and right to get what he wanted. It was shady business, and he hated to think about it. Angela deserved more than just a few drinks and one shady night in a hotel. She deserved candlelit dinners, roses, golden rings, and someone who would uplift her more than bring her down.  


Angela always found time to talk to him, or fit him in her busy schedule to tend to his injuries.  


“Be more careful, Jesse,” she would warn him like a mother. She cared, and he believed she cared too much for his criminal ass.  


“Well, if I was careful, I would never get to see you, Angie,” he grinned. He could count the freckles on her cheeks as they turned pink. It made his blood pressure rise and Angela looked at the wireless monitor bashfully.  


She kissed him first.  


She was going back to Switzerland and she didn't know if she was coming back any time soon. He didn’t want her to leave without him saying anything.  


“Jack will have to call me if he needs me back here. I have my hospital to take care of as well,” she explained as she twirled the ice in her glass of whiskey. They sat on the ledge of her bedroom’s window frame. The moonlight lit up their faces as they spoke to each other. He took another sip of whiskey, and watched her as she looked at the view outside her window. Her blonde hair was loose around her shoulders, framing her features.  


“I’ll come see you as soon as I can,” he said. She smiled as she placed her glass down. He watched her move towards him and he damn wished he pulled her in or something. He was frozen in place.  


Whiskey always tasted sweeter in a woman's mouth.  


She was gone in the morning. He turned his head to find that she was no longer next to him. She left a note. A short note in her messy handwriting.  


Widerluege.  


Whether it was permanent or temporary, formal or not, the word replayed in his head over and over again. He searched her room for any other trace she left behind. Nothing.  


He thought he was being played, and the thought itself made him chuckle in the empty room. It was his turn. The world had twisted his fate. He picked up his clothes and left her room like nothing happened. But everything happened, and he never could forget what her skin felt like under his fingertips. He anxiously waited for his voyage to her country.  


He couldn’t be in Switzerland for long. He had missions and training to attend for Blackwatch and Zurich wasn’t on his list of places to go to. He meant to surprise her. He meant to sneak up into her office and steal a few kisses. But, she wasn’t in her office when he arrived. The papers and folders on her desk were scattered haphazardly.  


“Let me get the files before the surgery, yes, they’re in my office,” he heard her voice outside the room. His heart swelled ten times larger to the sound. She saw him and stood there, staring.  


“Jesse, I didn’t think you’ll actually come,” she stuttered as she lifted her glasses.  


“I’m a man of my words,” he said as he opened his arms. Angela wrapped her arms around him. She buried her face in his big red scarf, smelling the tobacco that stuck around. He hugged her just as hard. He wish he could onto her a little longer but she broke away. She went straight for her desk to collect the files she needed.  


“I can’t stay with you right now. I have a perform an open heart surgery in half an hour,” she explained before giving him a quick kiss that sent shocks up his spine.  


He felt like an abandoned puppy; alone in her office.  


Being with Angela in Switzerland was nothing like he expected it to be. He meditated in her office to the sound of languages he didn’t speak. He cursed himself for hoping that she would drop everything for time with him.  


“Thank you for waiting,” she told him as she came back hours later to her office. She pulled off her lab coat and hooked it up. She wiped the sweat off her forehead before settling into his arms. She was limp and heavy. “We can go home now,” she mumbled.  


Her home had a traditional European style to it mixed with what was considered contemporary at the time. Her windows were filled with various plants and flowers. Old German paintings hung on the walls. Much of the furniture was out-dated and tacky. The walls were fit with some modern technology that were used more once upon a time.  


“It was my parent’s home, and where I grew up. I moved back in after they passed,” she explained as she poured hot water into two mugs. “I am very happy to see you Jesse. I hope I didn’t upset you.”  


“I’m fine. You didn’t upset me. It just was one hell of a shocker in the morning,” he half-admitted. He was mesmerized by her beauty in the dim light. She pulled her hair out of her ponytail and lightly ruffled her hair so it sat on her shoulders.  


She brewed lemon tea. He wasn’t really a fan of tea but he sipped at it at her kitchen table. She was quiet and yawned time to time. She finished her tea and settled the cup down in the sink as carefully as she could.  


“ _Komm mit mir_ ,” she pulled on his hand as she led him upstairs. He abandoned his tea.  


The steam of the bath brought out the hidden freckles on her shoulders. It was her idea and he wouldn’t say no to intimacy. Her naked self still made him blush, but she was long used to seeing the body. He gently washed her back as she smudged the day’s worth of black mascara and eyeliner from her eyes.  


“These scars, are raised,” she traced the white lines on his chest. They were pale compared to his darker skin tone. They were physical memories of his time with the Deadlock Gang. He let her touch them until her skin felt cold. He kissed the curve of her neck and spine. Her muscles were tense under his lips. They stayed in the water until their fingers pruned.  


She was asleep the moment her head hit the pillow. He heard her little snores and chuckled; _cute_ . He settled comfortably next to her.  


“I think, I love you, Angie,” he whispered before he laid down to rest.  


The hospital stressed him out much more than he thought. The sight of medical equipment made his stomach churn. He couldn’t do much, he wasn’t a doctor nor did he know anything about medicine in general. He found himself in the Swiss Overwatch headquarters that attached itself to the hospital. He took meetings with the soldiers and generals who asked him about the American bases and any future Blackwatch missions.  


The more he stayed with her, the more he saw a different side of her. More reserved. More contemplative.  


Tired.  


He felt he had a duty now, to be there when the day had turned into night; to bring relief to her aching shoulders.  


Unfortunately, he was too late in his realization. His time in Switzerland was running out.  


“Stay with me in Los Angeles,” he proposed. The look on her face almost broke his heart into two.  


“I can not leave my hospital,” she told him with a tone that sounded like he just offended her in the worst way possible. “My time in the States was temporary. I-I won’t be back there unless Overwatch needs me.”  


He had no words that could convince her otherwise.  


Their last night together was filled with desperate touches and silent whimpers. He wanted her engraved into his memory like scratching their names into the bark of an oak tree.  


“I wish things were better,” she cried.  


He kissed her over and over again until the morning. He ran his hand through her hair and stroked her cheeks. At sunrise, she laid in bed as she watched him dress and leave.  


“There will be time for you again,” she said.  


“Let’s just hope I’m still alive to savour it.”  


The decline in support for Overwatch was quick and painless. He wanted nothing to do with the rebellion. Nothing to do with the feud between Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes. Nothing to do with the organization that failed him and kept too many secrets from the people they served.  


When the Swiss headquarters fell, he was in an American hospital for an amputation. He played too much with fire in the Australian deserts and he had blew his arm partially off. It was on the television in his resting room. He was under the effects of the morphine.  


“Angie,” he whispered as a single tear fell from his eyes. They report didn’t speak of any deaths or survivors, only that Overwatch’s agents were on the scene. “They failed you too.”  


He fell asleep.  


It had been ten years since he spoke to Angela, his Angie. The wind shook the cornstalks around him as he light up his cigar. He inhaled the tobacco and let it escape his nose before continuing onto his path. He was helping out a couple of old friends retrieve their sacred land. He would’ve preferred to get there by horseback but he was stuck getting there by foot.  


“Who in the hell?” his communicator blew up in his back pocket. Kept the old thing for nostalgia sake. He tilted his hat to cover the screen from the harsh sunlight.  


_Overwatch calling…_  


He answered the call without hesitation.  


_Hey, Winston! Long time no see!,_ Lena spoke first on the group call. Many of the others responded as well. A few surprising names, such as Fareeha Amari, Reindhart Wilhelm, and if he scrolled closer to the end…

 _Winston? What is the meaning of this?_ Angela spoke. His heart dropped into his knees. She was alive. She was alive…  


“Son of a bitch, Winston,” he mumbled to himself before he began running through the field to find an exit. He would come back to his mission eventually, but for now, he had his girl to get to.


End file.
